Scripture #3: The Much More of the Heavenly Father

With only three weeks to go I am down to the last three passages of Scripture that have greatly influenced my life. As I have said earlier, these are not in any certain order, like you would get on the David Letterman Show or the Top Forty Hits. We aren’t counting down to number one.

Today’s passage comes from Matthew 7:11 and is not one you hear quoted that often. In the Sermon on the Mount, which Steve Brown and I call the Sermon on the Kingdom, in the context of teaching on prayer, which we believe must be seen in the context of Jesus’ Kingdom teaching, he says:

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Many see Jesus’ famous sermon as a soaring ideal; most see it as full of impossible expectations. I could talk here about how this passage and the verses around it ought to transform the way we look at Jesus’ message, but instead I want to focus on one phrase that has affected my thinking.  The phrase is: "How much more will your Father in Heaven.”

Years ago I read a powerful little book by Vernard Eller titled The Simple Life.  (Just Google it. It’s free on the Internet.) Eller emphasizes this verse and talks about "the much more of the Heavenly Father." That phrase embedded itself in my mind, and has encouraged me in countless situations.

Eller's book in many ways focuses on the last part of Matthew chapter 6 and Jesus’ call for us to not lay up treasures on earth, but to lay up treasures in heaven. He keeps this phrase, rightly, in the context of the Sermon on the Mount and emphasizes how those who seek first the Kingdom with experience "the much more of the Heavenly Father."

On so many occasions, when my thinking tended to drift toward the negative, this promise of "the much more of the Heavenly Father” turned me in a good direction and gave my faith some muscle. Probably like many of you, I have always delighted in giving gifts to my children. And I have no desire to mock their requests. But if that's the way we are, though we are evil, how much more will the Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. That is a mind-changing passage.